The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Treasury of Solutions

Sit back in your leather armchair in front of the fire, pour yourself a glass of port and savour this lavishly-produced pornography of the impossible.

This is ‘book’ 24 in the series The Impossible Books of Keith Kahn-Harris. The cover was created by Gus Condeixa. For more on this series, read the introduction here.

What sort of book is it?

A seductive coffee table book.

How likely is it that I will write the book?

Not impossible.

Am I happy for anyone else to write the book?

There are loads of books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict of course, but I’d rather that the concept of this coffee table book stays with me.

Synopsis

It’s been a global pastime since at least the 1930s — let’s find a solution that solves Israel/Palestine!

· Some solutions are immensely detailed, the result of intensive discussions and ground-breaking conflict resolution processes.

· Some are incredibly simplistic, the result of little more than bar-room prejudices scribbled on the back of a metaphorical beer mat.

· Some involve ethnic cleansing, or the permanent subjugation of one or another population.

· Some involve innovative constitutional solutions and borders, attempting to find some way of satisfying both national aspirations.

· Some could only be brought about through war, others through intensive negotiation.

· Some have been tried, some never even have a chance of being attempted.

Yet despite the efforts of some of the world’s finest minds (and some of the least fine too), we still do not have a ‘solution’. What we have is ambiguity: an Israel without fixed borders that is not universally recognised, a Palestine that has a kind of shadow existence (Schrödinger’s state perhaps?)

Whatever your views are on the conflict — whether you are a one-stater or two-stater, an ethnic cleanser or a devotee of coexistence — you are probably frustrated with the current reality. And while there is little choice but to carry on trying to bring about whatever solution you cling to, you’d be forgiven for wanting to vent your frustration at the sheer, maddening endlessness of it all.

That’s where this book comes in.

A coffee table book, produced to the highest possible standards, The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Treasury of Solutions, invites readers to wallow in the madness. Within its beautifully-bound pages, the reader will find every solution to the conflict that has ever been proposed. Each solution will be accompanied by a specially-commissioned map, showing the borders of the state(s) proposed.

The book will not make any judgments about the desirability or practicality of each solution, nor will it venture any explanations about why some solutions failed. Like pornography, the book will not question your desires or beliefs; there is no guilt or responsibility here, just the voluptuous pleasure of possibility, endlessly deferred.

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this Impossible Book, why not browse through the rest of the series here?

Also, please recommend and share it on Medium or elsewhere. I would love to read your comments too.

Many thanks!

Finally, here’s an alternative cover: